The Brickyard

Auntie

Kevin stood by the pit wall, watching a green car approaching. His fingers twittled, his foot tapped, he licked his lips and his heart pounded rapidly like a Metallica drum track. But as he visualized his well-practiced choreography of getting into the car, he saw images of himself screaming down the Indy front stretch. He closed his eyes, muttering a mantra, and reopened them in time to see the Mazda RT24-P pull into the pit box. The pit crew jumped over the wall and began work on the car. Kevin joined the fray.

The images of Indy vanished. That would have to wait until Friday, that was when Indy Grand Prix qualifying was scheduled to take place. He needed to be here, in the IMSA Mid-Ohio Sports Car Challenge, driving for MAZDA Team Joest. Yes, he DID just say that to himself, albeit in his head.

The car door opened. The other driver unbuckled his safety harness and jumped out. Kevin did his part in the dance, slipping into the front seat. He fumbled with the harness (Goddammit, fucking stupid—) until he got one of the straps out from behind him and buckled himself into the seat (There we go!) with the help of another crewman leaning in through the driver's side door, even helping him get the safety harness on and the door net secured. With his help, he checked his HANS device. It was fastened well.

He heard the car door slam, so he took hold of the steering wheel. His heartbeat didn't let up too much, but he sighed as he adjusted his grip to get it right. He would be sure to thank his agent again, for finding this opportunity to keep busy on non-IndyCar race weekends. He was sure he'd go nuts if he didn't have a car to make go vroom. He actually wanted to drive a Ford GT for Chip Ganassi. But Erin didn't like the thought of her best driver racing for a competitor, as Ganassi fields an IndyCar team, too, a possible conflict of interest. But was it ironic he was driving for a German team, while preparing to face another German team and their German driver?

... NAAAAHHHH. That's just the business.

He waited as the crew finished the pit stop. He rapped his fingers on the wheel and rapidly tapped his foot next to the throttle. IMSA, or endurance racing pit stops in general, are slower than IndyCar. He had to wait as the crew, already done refueling, changed the car's tires. Only two crew members did that, going from one tire to another. I keep telling IMSA, do the fucking NASCAR or IndyCar thing, he thought to himself. NASCAR pit crews do one side of the car first, then the other, while IndyCar crews do all four simultaneously. Of course, there was no way IMSA would listen to him, he was just a 22-year-old with a reputation. Some people called him a spoiled brat, others just thought he was punching well above his weight, and then those who heaped praise on him.

He frowned, thinking about the latter. Why did that bother him so much?

The car jolted, dropping to the ground. A crewman tapped on the car, the signal to go. He pressed the accelerator, driving west out of the pit box, keeping the car under the speed limit. He checked the screen showing the rear-view camera, saw nothing, and the side view mirror showed nothing, either.

The car exited the pit lane, merging into traffic after the 90-degree left-handed first turn. A DPi car with Penske livery sped past like in the fast lane. Once out of the pits, he accelerated, upshifting to stay ahead of another car, this one in the GT class. His Mazda merged with traffic, staying in front of the Porsche, even as said Porsche tried to pass him with the "Keyhole", a sweeping 90-degree right turn, approaching.

Kevin was young, but he knew Mid-Ohio well enough to keep the car ahead of the Porsche. IndyCar raced at Mid-Ohio yearly as well, so he knew the track. Sure enough, keeping to the inside in the "Keyhole" kept him ahead, and he pulled away from the Porsche exiting the turn. The sweeping straightaway out of the keyhole turn allowed him to accelerate, even with the slight bend where they crossed the line to actually start the race, a feature sort of unique to Mid-Ohio.